Informant38

creeping dead zones

Last summer every sea creature across an area twice the size of Wales was asphyxiated by severely depleted oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico. The same phenomenon, the marine equivalent of the ozone hole, happened off South America, China, Japan, south-east Australia, New Zealand, and up to 150 other places.
A United Nations agency warned yesterday that the number of these "dead zones", caused mainly by the run-off of nitrogen fertilisers from intensive farming and sewerage from large cities, had doubled in the past 15 years and was increasing all over the world.

John Vidal/Guardian UK Mar.30.04